3 Answers
3

/var/www/html is where stuff should go. /home/httpd is a very legacy location that was a default in the apache 1.x days but most software, any RPM packages you install, etc. will presume that your webroot is under /var/www. Also the default SELinux rules tag files under /var/www automatically by default which should make management simpler for you by not going against the grain.

Say I move /var/www to /www and bind mount /www in /var/www. This should work just the same, correct?
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smhmicAug 31 '11 at 18:46

Sure that would be fine but just be sure you know what you are getting out of doing that. If you make a new filesystem and mount it under both /www and /var/www what does having the other directory name get you. If /www and /var/www are on the same filesystem what does fiddling with bind mounts and having another name get you? If you make a new filesystem you can just mount it under /var/www and not overcomplicate it.
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mtinbergAug 31 '11 at 21:40

I only figured I would have a clearer view of where things are located from the root. (Not to mention slightly shorter paths.) Thanks for your input!
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smhmicSep 1 '11 at 15:02

If you want a /home partition that's, say, on a RAID or is backed-up regularly, you may want to put your website's data on that partition.

If your /var is on a RAID or being backed-up regularly, independently from /home, then maybe you want your website's data on /var instead, especially if you have other vital services that have their data sit on /var (like bind, postfix, cyrus, databases, etc.).

If you don't backup anything and just have /home and /var on separate partitions, it's a matter of keeping user data separate (/home) from system data (/var).

If you have both /home and /var on the same partition, then it doesn't really matter.

I would suggest using LVM to manage the volume creation and create a new volume any time you have a major application using space, otherwise if you have a large /home as you describe, use bind mounts rather than symlinks, as there are a few corner cases where they work better. The distinction between user/system data is blurred as many applications store their data in /var such as databases, mail servers, web servers, etc. Gratuitously changing these defaults tends to cause unforeseen problems later.
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mtinbergAug 31 '11 at 18:24

this makes sense. Since I am running on a single partition, I'll just stick the standard like Jon Lin specified.
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smhmicAug 31 '11 at 18:44

/var contains variable data files. This includes spool directories
and files, administrative and logging data, and transient and
temporary files.

/home is a fairly standard concept, but it is clearly a site-specific
filesystem. The setup will differ from host to host. Therefore, no
program should rely on this location.

/srv contains site-specific data which is served by this system.

I leave /var/www for the default VirtualHost, with a fantastic It works! page or a redirection.

And the other VirtualHost DocumentRoot points to

/srv/nameserver/cli/customernumber/domain/www80

Generaly /srv/nameserver/cli/customernumber is the mount point of a hard disk partition owned by the customer, local or NFS, and if the customer don't need to execute cgi's, I mount with noexec options in the fstab, i.e.: